This sermon was preached on Sunday
evening, November 27th, 1983, at the Trinity Baptist Church
in Montville, New Jersey. Every time any true servant of
Christ stands before a gathering of God's people to open the Word,
he ought to have some conscious, some felt awareness of his dependence
upon God and the ministry of the Spirit, but perhaps never
does a servant of Christ feel it more profoundly than when
attempting to deal with those great realities of the unseen
world to come, because in one's own spirit there is the weight
of the guilt But the very one who attempts to speak of these
things to others and seriously to impress them upon their minds
is very conscious that he feels so little of the weight and the
pressure of those truths upon his own heart. So as we pray
together, pray not only that God will enable you to taste
and feel the powers of the world to come, but that as I attempt
to speak of these things, my own mind and heart and spirit
will also feel their pressure to an unusual degree. Let us
pray. Our Father, we can only take
our posture before you, overwhelmed with the sense of the dullness
and the moral madness which sin has produced in your creatures,
that we who are destined to spend an eternity in a place of indescribable
woe and horror and pain and agony, or in a place of indescribable
glory and bliss, should live so many of the hours of so many
of our days utterly insensitive to the great realities of the
world to come. We confess the sin of our moral
madness. We confess the sin of our dullness. And we pray that you would send
your Holy Spirit upon us in such copious measures that in this
room, at least for a few minutes tonight, O God our Father, we
may feel and taste the powers of the world to come. O speak
to us, saint and sinner alike, and may we in grace be enabled
to respond to your voice, speaking to us through the Scriptures. We ask through Jesus Christ our
Lord. Amen. For a number of Lord's Day evenings,
we have occupied our minds with a serious consideration of the
biblical teaching relative to the doctrines of heaven and of
hell. Our method in conjunction with
this study has been to open our Bibles and to attempt to collate
or gather together in groups some of the major witness of
the word of God to these doctrines as we've addressed the scriptures
with these questions, what is hell? Who is going there? What is heaven? And who is going
there? Now tonight, in our final study
in this present series, I wish to underscore more fully and
explicitly the burning relevance of these biblical doctrines of
heaven and of hell. Throughout this entire series,
I have sought to bring application, but tonight, in a sense, the
entire message is application. And as we stand on the threshold
of opening up this subject of the practical relevance, the
burning relevance of the biblical doctrines of heaven and hell,
I want, by way of introduction, to make two simple but fundamental
assertions. Everything that is expounded
tonight, every exhortation given, every admonition given, assumes
these two fundamental biblical perspectives, and I want to assert
them, highlight them for a moment, so that they'll be in the back
of our minds throughout the entire exposition and application of
the Word of God tonight. First of all, we must understand
that salvation, in all of its aspects, is entirely the gracious
work of God on behalf of hell-deserving sinners. Salvation in all of
its aspects is entirely the gracious work of God on behalf of hell-deserving
sinners. The Bible is clear, consistent,
and emphatic in its teaching that deliverance from sin and
its consequences unto all of its privileges and blessings
of redeeming mercy is all of God and all of grace. From the simple statement given
by the angel at the conception of our Lord, thou shalt call
his name Jesus, for he shall save his people to those more
profound theological statements found in the epistles such as
Ephesians 2.8, for by grace you have been saved. It is the clear,
consistent, emphatic teaching of the Bible that salvation in
all of its aspects is entirely a gracious work of God on behalf
of hell-deserving sinners. A summation of the whole witness
of Scripture is to be found in the simple statement, the doctrine
of salvation in the Bible is simply this, that God saves sinners. God the Father, God the Son,
God the Holy Spirit, saves. He does everything that pertains
to the deliverance from sin and its consequences. unto the blessings
of sovereign mercy, and he does this for sinners, people who
in themselves deserve nothing of this salvation, who deserve
nothing but wrath. Therefore, within such a system
of salvation, any terminology of reward And any profit motive,
any incentive to reward must always be viewed in the larger
context of a salvation of grace. And it's important that we understand
that as we come to consider tonight the practical implications of
the doctrines of heaven and hell. For we shall see in passage after
passage the idea of gaining heaven as the reward of perseverance,
the reward of overcoming, the reward of consistency in mortification. These are biblical teachings,
but they must be understood in that larger context that they
are the reward of grace, and in no way are we to think in
terms of a salvation that is earned by something performed
by the sinner. And then the second assertion
that we must make is this. Salvation in all its aspects
is entirely the gracious work of God for men, in men, and as
men. this gracious salvation provided
for men, worked in men, is always provided and worked with reference
to men as men. Depraved sinners, yes, but never
sinners who are regarded as sticks and stones and blocks of wood,
so that in the outworking of that salvation God always deals
with us as men. as women, as boys and girls. And in the mystery of what makes
us men and women and boys and girls, with the ability to be
motivated and drawn in a given direction, with the hope of reward,
with the fear of punishment, the incentive of reward, all
of those things pertain to us as men and women simply because
we are what we are as men and women. And God's salvation does
not negate those realities, but it works in the midst of them. We might even reverently say
it builds upon them. And we must understand that as
we come to our subject tonight. Now, with those two introductory
assertions before us, I purpose to demonstrate from the Word
of God that in this great salvation, which is all of God and all of
grace, designed and applied for men as men, that the doctrines
of heaven and hell do indeed have a pressing, a burning, and
a multifaceted relevance. And as I have sought to organize
the biblical materials into the simplest framework that I can
presently conceive of, I've used the imagery of getting us into
the way, and then of keeping us upon the way. For if anyone
gets to heaven, in the usage of biblical language, it will
be because a sinner has been brought into the way. He has been converted. He has
been brought to repentance and faith. He has been given a new
heart. He has been constituted a new
creature. And I want to demonstrate that
in getting unconverted sinners into the way, the doctrines of
heaven and hell have a profound, a major relevance. And then secondly,
I want to demonstrate that in keeping converted sinners upon
the way, the doctrines of heaven and hell also have a profound
and multifaceted relevance. So that's the organizing principle. The relevance of the doctrines
of heaven and hell, first of all, in getting unconverted sinners
into the way, and then, secondly, in keeping converted sinners
upon the way. All right? First of all, then,
what relevance do the doctrines of heaven and hell have in getting
unconverted sinners into the way? Well, as we look at the
Scriptures, we will come to the conclusion that these doctrines
are, on the one hand, particularly now the doctrine of hell, like
a whip in the hand of the Holy Ghost to drive sinners away from
their love and attachment to sin in the direction of Christ
and heaven and the cross and repentance and faith. And on
the other hand, particularly the doctrine of heaven is like
a magnet that pulls them into that way. And so these doctrines
are like a whip to scourge a sinner away from his and a magnet to
draw him into the way of life and of righteousness. And of
necessity, we must be selective, but let's look at several passages
in which the whip and the magnet are clearly seen with reference
to getting sinners into the way. In Matthew's Gospel, the seventh
chapter, a very familiar passage to most of us, Our Lord is bringing
to a conclusion what we commonly call the Sermon on the Mount.
In this particular discourse, or collection of discourses,
our Lord has been describing the character traits of the subjects
of his kingdom of grace. He has been setting forth the
righteous standards of that kingdom. He has given practical counsels
to the members of that kingdom as they relate to the world of
things. food and clothing and shelter
and all of these matters. And then in the seventh chapter,
as a wise preacher, our Lord now begins to press upon the
consciences of His hearers the necessity of entering this kingdom. He's not content simply to give
an accurate exposition of the character traits of the subjects
of the kingdom, the righteous standards which operate within
that kingdom, the practical concerns of the members of that kingdom.
He's not content simply to teach. He is concerned to urge upon
men to enter into that kingdom. and he does so under the imagery
of a gate and a way in verses 13 and 14 speaking in the imperative
our Lord in all of the plenitude of regal authority and grace
says enter in by the narrow gate for wide is the gate and broad
is the way that leads to destruction and many are they that enter
in thereby For narrow is the gate, and straightened or compressed
the way that leads unto life, and few are they that find it. You see what our Lord does in
seeking to urge upon men the necessity of conversion, the
duty of being converted? For He speaks in the imperative,
He commands His hearers to enter. To enter that narrow gate of
true biblical conversion, that gate which turns on the hinges
of repentance and faith, and as our Lord is seeking to get
unconverted sinners into the way, by what realities does He
bring pressure to bear upon their consciences? To use the language
already used tonight, what are the levers of motivation by which
he seeks to pry them loose from their attachment to sin? By which
he seeks to pry them loose from their attachment to the world? Well, the passage answers very
clearly. It is the motives of hell on
the one hand and heaven on the other. Enter in by the narrow
gate. Motivation number one, for wide
is the gate and broad is the way and it leads to destruction. It's as though our Lord looks
out and sees a look of carelessness upon the faces when He issues
His regal command of grace. Enter in by the narrow gate.
Oh hum, why bother? And our Lord brings, as it were,
upon the conscience this shockwave of terminology. The only other
alternative is destruction. Regard this matter of the necessity
of entering the narrow gate with indifference, and the price you
will pay is destruction. Bound up in the use of that word,
destruction, in the language of our Lord and in Holy Scripture,
is all the horrible reality of the doctrine of hell. All of
the realities our Lord has previously expounded in this very sermon,
where He speaks of a place of unquenchable fire, where He speaks
of the Gehenna of fire, where He speaks of that awful place
that we sought to describe in previous messages. And so our
Lord, in seeking to get unconverted sinners into the way, is not
at all ashamed to bring to bear upon them this whip, this whip
of the doctrine of hell, by which He would seek to drive them from
their sins and into the way of righteousness and life. But then
you will notice He closes the passage by saying, narrow is
the gate and compress the way which leads unto life. And He sets before man the glorious
reality of life, life not only in its immediate dimensions of
communion and fellowship with God in the present order of things,
but life in its consummate glory in the heaven being prepared
for all who know Him and for all who love him. And so our
Lord, at the conclusion of his own sermon, presses upon men
the necessity of being converted by bringing into sharp focus
the doctrines of heaven and of hell. Turn to Romans chapter
6 for a clear example of this in the writing of the Apostle
Paul. Romans 6 is the chapter in which there is an extended
analogy of spiritual experience under the imagery of a dual slavery. It's the picture of slaves of
sin or slaves of God and of righteousness. All men by nature being, of course,
the slaves of sin. Some men by grace have been made
the slaves of God and of righteousness. And as he's bringing this chapter
to a conclusion, he distills the whole essence of what he
has been teaching into verse 23. For the wages of sin is death,
but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. The great summary statement of
this entire chapter is, the way of death and the way of life
are set before us. If someone can come through the
chapter and say, all right, so I'm a slave of sin, so what? Well, he's saying eventually
your master will call a payday. And when the payment is made,
the wages of sin is death. And interpreting that word death
biblically, it is not the cessation of existence. It is the conscious
separation of the soul from God, and that for all eternity. In
the language of Romans chapter 2, it is tribulation, wrath,
and anguish upon every soul of him who does evil. Then he sets
in stark contrast the free gift of God. is eternal life. Whatever is available for sinners
in Jesus Christ, in all of its ramifications, this is the heart,
this is the essence of what is held out for us in Christ, eternal
life. There are the alternatives, death
or life, hell or heaven. Those are the great issues at
stake as we contemplate whether we are the slaves of sin. or the slaves of God and of righteousness. Then when we turn to the Scriptures
and see our Lord dealing one-on-one with people, we see Him as the
great soul winner, the great personal worker, bringing to
bear upon men's consciences the great issues of heaven and hell.
Perhaps you've already thought of the one that I'm going to
refer to, Matthew 19, the rich young ruler. May I say it reverently? Here our Lord is seeking to convert
this man. Our Lord has looked upon him
and loved him. And our Lord, in love, is seeking
to bring this young man into the way. He has come to him saying,
Good Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? And
the Lord begins to probe his conscience and deal with him.
And then, to strike a blow to his own naive opinion of himself,
the Lord Jesus says in Matthew 19 and in verse 21, Jesus said
unto him, If you would be perfect gold, sell that which you have,
give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. And come, follow me. When the young man heard the
saying, he went away sorrowful, for he was one that had great
possessions." Now notice what our Lord did. Our Lord did not
say, if you go on in this present state of idolatrous attachment
to your possessions, you'll burn in hell with all the other covetousness,
covetous people. That would have been true. That's
asserted elsewhere. A covetous man who is an idolater
hath no inheritance in the kingdom of God and of Christ. But you
see, our Lord does not seek in this passage to whip the man
away from his idol of money by the terrors of damnation, but
he seeks to draw him by the attractiveness of riches that will never fade.
Give up these riches that will fade, and in exchange for them
you will have treasures, unfading wealth and worth in heaven. Come, follow me." Now the sad
thing is, he refuses. He goes away sad, unfulfilled,
unconverted. But the point that I'm making
for our study tonight is this. that you see the doctrine of
heaven was in the hands of our Lord, a powerful tool in seeking
to bring an unconverted sinner into the way. He holds out before
him the realities of heaven and says, these are yours on my terms,
but they are yours nonetheless on my terms. Come and follow
me. On the other hand, There are
situations in which the Lord Jesus brings the terrors of hell
to bear upon the consciences of people, again seeking to impress
upon them the necessity of a deep and thorough spiritual transformation. Luke chapter 13. There were two
incidents known to the people of that day. One, in which people
were apparently brutally murdered in the midst of their worship.
a natural calamity, a tower fell upon them. And Jesus says to
the people who were thinking about this and relating it to
themselves, verse 2 of Luke 13, Do you think that these Galileans
were sinners above all the Galileans because they suffered these things?
I tell you, no. But except you repent, you shall
in all like manner perish. Or those eighteen upon whom the
tower in Siloam fell and killed them, do you think that they
were offenders above all the men that dwell in Jerusalem?
I tell you no, but except you repent, you shall all likewise
perish. And on over into Luke chapter
16, when dealing with the Pharisees who were lovers of money, verse
14, and the Pharisees who were lovers of money heard all these
things, they scoffed at him. And then the Lord begins to speak
to them, and it's in that very context that he gives the parable,
the story of the rich man and Lazarus. And the most graphic
instruction in all of the gospel records, as far as an extended
description of the agonies of the damned, comes from the lips
of the Lord Jesus, in the presence of these covetous Pharisees.
And he's taking the doctrine of hell and using it, as it were,
as a holy whip by which to seek to pry them loose and drive them
from their idolatrous attachment to things. So for any to say
that it is sub-Christian to hold out to men on the one hand, the
hope of escaping hell and the hope of gaining heaven as a motive
to conversion is sheer nonsense. Christ himself did it again and
again and again and again. We find it in the apostolic epistles,
though for the most part they are not a record of their actual
preaching. We see this same emphasis coming
through in some of the recorded sermons. Acts 17, for instance,
God commands all men everywhere to repent. Why? Because he's
appointed a day of judgment in which you'll stand before God
and give an account of the deeds done in the body. And so in seeking
to get unconverted sinners into the way, the doctrines of heaven
and hell have a primary place in Holy Scripture, and they must
always have a primary place in our own witnessing, in our own
preaching, in our thinking, in the instruction of our children.
Now, I did not say they must have an exclusive place. The
Bible holds forth other motives to conversion. The Bible holds
forth the motive of getting rid of the terrible burden of empty
religion. Matthew 11. It holds forth the
tremendous possibility of the deepest thirstings of the soul
being satisfied. If any man thirsts, let him come
unto me and drink. There are many motives held forth
in the Word of God. I'm asserting that a primary
motive set forth again and again and again is the biblical doctrine
of heaven and the biblical doctrine of hell. Now it's important for
us to understand that because in our Lord's day, all of the
social ills that we know in our day were at least in principle
present. Slavery was in existence. terrible inequity, the rich getting
richer and the poor getting poorer. There were all kinds of injustices
and inequities, but our Lord never adjusted the gospel to
become primarily a this-worldly gospel. It was essentially and
primarily an other-worldly gospel. He said to the poor of His day,
come to Me, not for social righteousness, but to miss hell and to gain
heaven. We must not allow, we must not
allow ourselves to be bullied by the so-called reawakened social
consciousness of evangelicalism to move us from the emphases
of Holy Scripture. One of those major emphases is
that in seeking to get unconverted sinners into the way, we must
do all within our power to entice them to become Christians by
the glories of heaven, and drive them from their sins by the terrors
of hell. Now, I fully know that neither
one will be effectual without the blessing of the Holy I'm
very conscious of that. A man can preach faithfully the
biblical doctrine of hell, as one preacher of this past generation
said, until you can veritably smell the fire and the brimstone. And people will go rocking along
in their armchairs of indifference until they sink into hell, unless
God the Holy Ghost opens their eyes. I know that. We can speak
of the glories of heaven until our own tongues are paralyzed
with the effort to describe its glories, and we will be but as
madmen and fools. I am fully aware of that. But
we must nonetheless seek to do what our Lord and the apostles
did, namely, to use those great truths in dependence upon the
Spirit of God and plead with God that He would make them to
bring men to the place where the Spirit of God brought Moses. And I want us to look at that
as the final text under this first heading. In Hebrews chapter
11, you children, most of you have had at least a little acquaintance
with Moses, the great man of God whose life begins floating
around in a little cradle all daubed with pitch in the river.
And you remember the story how Pharaoh's daughter comes and
sees him, and she is brought into the court of Pharaoh, and
there he is given an education, surrounded with all of the wealth
and the finery of that court. And then the time came when he
was able to make a choice. And the choice was, shall I become
the officially adopted son of Pharaoh's daughter? And secular
historians tell us that perhaps he would have been top man in
line for the very throne in Egypt. But be that as it may, he would
have had a tremendous place of influence and importance if he
had only consented to become the officially adopted son of
Pharaoh's daughter, or he could cast in his with his fellow slaves,
the Hebrews, who are in oppression and under the heel of Egyptian
rule. Well, Hebrews chapter 11 tells
us a very interesting thing about Moses when he came to the place
when he was able to make that decision on his own. Hebrews
chapter 11, and I begin reading with verse 24. By faith Moses when he was grown up, when he
was come to years, when he reached a place of maturation, refused
to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to
share ill treatment with the people of God than to enjoy the
pleasures of sin for a season, accounting the reproach of Christ
greater riches than the treasures of Egypt Now notice, this is
commercial language. He looked unto the recompense
of reward. What was it that enabled Moses,
not in the impulse of unstable youth, for remember the mark
of youth is what? Be no more children, tossed to
and fro and carried about. Under impulse in the unstable,
unformed character of the adolescent, one day he's sure he's going
to be a bank president, and the next day he's going to be a truck
driver. And three days later he's going
to be a world traveler and join someone on the moon, and the
day later he wants to retreat into the wilderness and do nothing
but live off the land and be a high-class hippie. Instability. tossed to and fro, no settled
commitment and perspective, no settled goals. That's the mark
of youth in that period. But now when Moses was come to
years, this was no decision made on a youthful impulse. This was
not a decision that had its roots in all of the hormonal changes
that go on in adolescence, not a change that goes on when the
mind has not been able to perceive things in proper relationship. Here he was, a mature man with
that trained mind, and under the discipline of the Spirit
of God, he calmly faced the option Pharaoh's son, or the son of
Pharaoh's daughter, the treasures of Egypt, the influence, he might
even reason, great influence, even to help God's poor, oppressed
people. On the other hand, it was the
people of God suffering reproach with then which was nothing less
than the reproach of Messiah. And it says he chose this, and
he refused that, and he never went back on that choice. The people again and again were
saying, let's go back to Egypt, let's go back to Egypt, let's
go back to Egypt. Never once is it recorded that
Moses ever so much has looked back over his shoulder. There
are times when he cried out under the burden of leadership, oh
God, this people is more than I can bear. But there is no record
that he ever looked back and said, oh, that I had never refused
to be the son of Pharaoh's daughter. When he refused and he chose,
it was a settled, resolute decision. And according to this passage,
he made that decision because his eye was fixed on what? Look
at the text. For he had respect unto the recompense
of the reward. He looked unto the recompense
of reward. In other words, he made that
decision looking square in the eye. The ultimate end of that
road and the ultimate end of that road. And that one led to
hell and that one led to heaven. And that's exactly where you
and I must stand. in weighing the appeal of this
world and the pleasures of sin for a season, and Moses was old
enough to know what those pleasures could mean to him, he refused,
because he had a consciousness of the great realities of heaven
and of hell. Well, let me hasten on, and I
can only be spotty in underscoring these things What about heaven
and hell in keeping converted sinners upon the way? What place
are these doctrines to have? Well, once we are brought into
the way, we are given a set of motives we never knew before.
The Bible describes them in this language. The love of Christ
holds me in its grip. 2 Corinthians 5 and verse 14.
Something we never knew before we got into the way. We know
what it is to be held in the grip of Christ's love to us and
it constrains us to a life of obedience. If you love me, you
will keep my commandments. Obedience is our delight. We're
held in the grip of the motive of recognizing we're not our
own. We've been bought with a price and therefore we're under solemn
obligations to glorify God in our bodies, which are His. 1
Corinthians 6 and verse 19 and 20. And once we are placed upon
the way, the Holy Spirit, who has given us a new heart, who
has come to take up His residence within us, suffuses through the
soul many motives that draw direct reference or have direct reference
to the cross and to the work of Christ on our behalf. And
I'm not minimizing any of those motives, but what I'm asserting
is this. The Bible teaches that the whip
and the magnet that were instrumental to some degree to get us into
the way do not lose their power upon the way. The same whip and
magnet that got us into the way are operative to keep us on the
way. The Bible makes it abundantly
clear. Let me draw out a few of the
specific lines of thought. First of all, the doctrines of
heaven and hell are to act powerfully as motives to serious mortification
of sin. One of the duties from the moment
you enter the narrow gate and are set upon the narrow way that
leads to life And that duty will be with you until you cross the
river into the celestial city is the putting to death of the
deeds of the body, the mortification of sin. Now, do heaven and hell
enter into the motivational complex to take mortification seriously? You bet your boots they do. In
Matthew chapter 5, the Lord Jesus underscores this. As he is calling
the subjects of his kingdom to a life of constant mortification,
he does so under the vivid imagery of amputation and discarding. Matthew chapter 5, verse 29,
If thy right eye causes you to stumble, As a subject of my kingdom
committed to a righteous life, one in which your thoughts will
reflect obedience to the seventh commandment, knowing that my
Father's righteous law that says thou shalt not commit adultery
touches even the fantasies and the activities of the mind known
only to you and God, as a subject of my kingdom, committed to a
life of righteousness in terms of the seventh commandment, if
your right eye causes you to stumble, pluck it out, cast it
from you, for it is profitable for you that one of your members
should perish and not your whole body be cast into hell. And if your right hand causes
you to stumble, cut it off, cast it from you, it is profitable
for you that one of your members should perish and not that your
whole body go into hell. In taking seriously the matter
of mortification, the doctrine of hell is brought forward in
a very graphic way by our Lord. But the Apostle Paul, the great
exponent of grace, gives the same emphasis in Romans chapter
8. Therefore, brethren, having asserted that we have been delivered
out of the realm of the flesh and into the realm of the Spirit
in the dynamics of grace, therefore, brethren, Romans 8.12, we are
debtors. We have come under solemn obligations
because of the dynamics of grace, that grace that has gotten us
out of the way of flesh and into the way of the We are debtors,
not to the flesh, to live after the flesh. For if you live after
the flesh, you must die. That's not talking about physical
death. The most holy men and women died
physically. If you live after the flesh,
you must die. But if by the Spirit you put
to death the deeds of the body, you shall live. Life and death
are at stake in the matter of serious mortification. And this
is in the very chapter in which he says, I am persuaded that
neither life, nor death, nor height, nor depth, nor any other
creature shall be able to separate me from the love of God in Christ
Jesus our Lord. And yet that same apostle says,
if you live after the flesh, you'll die. If by the Spirit
you mortify the deeds of the flesh, you'll live. And he was
not only preaching that to others, he believed it for himself. 1
Corinthians chapter 9. He believed it for himself. In
the chapter in which he is speaking of the liberties that he has
willingly relinquished for the sake of the gospel, and then
moves on into the imagery of a runner determined to win the
race, the apostle says, verse 25, and every man who strives
in the games exercises self-control in all things, They do it for
what purpose? To receive a corruptible crown
at the end of the race, but we an incorruptible. I therefore
so run not as uncertainly, so fight I as not beating the air,
but I buffet my body and bring it into bondage, lest by any
means after I have preached to others I myself should be adachimos. Adachimos! And its standard meaning
in the New Testament is reprobate. Reprobate, having preached to
others to flee from the wrath to come, to get into the way
of holiness, to stay upon the way by constant mortification. He said, I fear lest by giving
reign to my bodily appetites I myself should be overcome and
rejected. Didn't Paul believe in the perseverance
of the saints, the preservation of the saints? Yes, he did. That's
precisely why he wrote as he did. For he did not have in his
mind this false contradiction between the certainty of the
saints' preservation and the necessity of the saints' perseverance. And he knew of no perseverance
but in the way of serious mortification of sins. My friend, the next
time sin proposes itself, remember, the issues at stake are heaven
and hell. Heaven and hell! Heaven and hell. And no one will go far in the
work of mortification who regards the issues as anything less than
that. Convince yourself it's only a matter of a bigger or
smaller bag of yo-yos, and you'll end up living like the devil. all the while saying you're going
to heaven, only you'll have a smaller bag of yo-yos and lose a few
rewards. You lay the reign upon the neck
of your lusts and become one who is entangled in sins and
those sins become a pattern of life. The Word of God says certain
patterns of life are utterly inconsistent with being in a
state of grace and let God be true and every man a liar. That's
why we need continually to keep before us the recompense of the
reward. Is it worth it to go on fighting
with that sin that seems to be so impregnated from our very
genetic structure? It seemed that we were conceived
with a tendency to that irritability, to that overpowering angry spirit,
to that passionate temperament, whatever it is. And it seems
as though the battle at times is so wearisome and will never
end. And we wonder, is it worth it?
Every day it's fight and fight and fight and fight some more. What other alternative do you
have but to give up fighting and go to hell? You want heaven? Then fight on. For if you by
the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body you shall live. You
want heaven bad enough to fight until you get there? If not,
you don't want it bad enough. Heaven is for those who want
it bad enough to fight all the way, all the while trusting not
in their sword and in their arm, but in Christ alone. You say,
that's all a bunch of contradictory nonsense. Well, my friend, if
you call it that, it's because your eyes have never been open.
to understand one of the most precious mysteries of the gospel
and how it works in the heart of the sinner. But then furthermore,
the Bible teaches us that for those upon the way, the doctrines
of heaven and hell are to act powerfully as motives to be overcomers. That is to be conquerors. We
saw last week that heaven is reserved for the overcomers.
But it's interesting in the promises to the overcomers, and we'll
only look at two of them as specimens. On the one hand, overcomers are
promised heaven as the reward, and then they're promised the
escape of hell as the reward. And you see both strands coming
through in Revelation chapter two. Revelation chapter two and
verse seven. He that has an ear, let him hear
what the Spirit is saying to the churches. To him that overcomes,
to him will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in
the paradise of God." Do you want to eat of the tree of life
in the paradise of God? Overcome! There the glory of
heaven is held before you as a magnet to entice you, to draw
you, to hold you in the way of overcoming. But then we read
in verse 11, He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit
says to the churches. He that overcomes shall not be
hurt of the second death. And what is the second death?
Revelation 20 verse 15 tells us it's the lake of fire. Now
you see how the twin motivation comes to bear in the matter of
overcoming? Would you know the positive joy of all the privileges
of the new heavens and the new earth than be an overcomer? Would
you escape the horrors of the second death, weeping and wailing
and gnashing of teeth? Then be an overcomer. But the
motivation is to act powerfully in our pursuit of the life of
overcomers. Thirdly, heaven and hell are
to act powerfully as motives to faithfulness in service. We
could look at the parable in Matthew 25, 14 and following.
When the Lord returns and reckons with His servants, the thing
that is underscored in that passage, and we looked at it in another
light in a previous message, is to hear from the lips of the
returning Lord, well done, good and faithful servant, enter into
the joy of thy Lord. Entering into the joy of the
Lord is the reward of faithfulness in service and stewardship. We see it beautifully illustrated
in the Apostle Paul, and I want us to look at two verses in Acts
chapter 20 and verse 24. Acts chapter 20 and verse 24. If when you read the book of
Acts, you sense at times that Paul was a bit reckless with
his life, you've read the book of Acts correctly. There was
an element of recklessness. Why? He tells us, verse 24, I
do not hold my life of any account as dear to myself, so that I
may accomplish my course and the ministry which I receive
from the Lord Jesus to testify the gospel of the grace of God.
He said, for me, the important thing is not preserving my life,
but expending my life in completing the course of service marked
out for me by my Lord. I want to accomplish my course
and the ministry I receive from the Lord Jesus. But now, as that
was his goal, and with it came this element of sanctified recklessness,
what did he keep in his eye that held him to that course? Well,
he tells us in 2 Timothy chapter 4, because he's coming down near
the end of the course. He's making the final turn, coming
into the last straightaway. He sees the tape ahead. And this
is what he says, 2 Timothy chapter 4, verse 7, back up to verse
6, I'm already being offered. The time of my departure has
come. He knew that in a short time.
he would be taken in death. I have fought the good fight.
I have finished the course. I have kept the faith. Henceforth,
there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord,
the righteous judge, shall give to me at that day, and not to
me only, but also to all them that have loved his appearing.
He tells us as he comes down the homestretch that it was the
crown that he had in his eye, the reward that would await him
at the end of the race, and now he seizes it by his eye and,
as it were, draws it near by faith. You see, the whole concept
of reward was very precious to the Apostle. The great exponent
of grace found no contradiction in being motivated by that reward
called in this passage the crown of righteousness. And then I
want to touch briefly on this fourth way in which it motivates
the people of God along the way. We are to be powerfully motivated
by the doctrines of heaven and hell in seeking to be zealous
in our witness to the unconverted. The Apostle said in 2 Corinthians
5, 10 and 11, We must all be made manifest before the judgment
seat of Christ, that each may receive the things done in the
body, whether good or bad, knowing therefore the fear of the Lord. We persuade men. What fear? The fear couched in the context
of the day of reckoning. It was the realization that that
day would usher men into the glories of heaven or the horrors
of hell. And he said the realization of
that, knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade men, we are
dead in earnest as we seek to constrain men to consider the
claims of the Lord Jesus. You find the same emphasis in
James chapter 5. Here someone in the community
of the believers begins to dabble in error and turn aside from
the way of truth. What is our attitude and perspective
to be? James chapter five, verse 19. My brethren, if any among you
err from the truth and one convert him, One is instrumental in turning
him away from that error back into the way of truth. Let him
know, let this be a consciousness that he who converts a sinner
from the error of his way shall save a soul from death and shall
cover a multitude of sins. Now we know that ultimately only
God converts the man. Only God saves the soul from
death. Only the blood of Christ covers
a multitude of sins. But here the emphasis falls upon
the human instrumentality and with it, human motivation. Let him know if we see a brother
or a sister beginning to turn aside and we wonder, well, I
don't know how tactfully to approach it. Is this the time? And we're
all tied up with the technicalities. Let him know that if you're instrumental
to turn him from that error, you save a soul from death. Do you believe that apostasy
leads to death and to judgment and to hell? If so, that motivation
will influence us in our dealings with one another. The book of
Jude, verse 23, a similar emphasis. And on some have mercy who are
in doubt, and some save, snatching them out of the fire. What a
picture. Some save, snatching them out
of the fire. The picture of rescuing brands
from the burning. But then there's the other side.
In Revelation 22, 17, the Spirit and the Bride say, Come. Let
him that is a thirst come, and let him take of the water of
life freely. There it's not the terrors and
the horrors of hell from which we seek to rescue men. But it's
the glories and the privileges now and in the world to come
offered to us in the Gospel and the Bride. The Church of Christ
is to say, come. Not only is the Church to say,
flee the wrath to come, but come to the fountain of living waters. Come to the privileges of the
grace and salvation offered in Christ that will ultimately issue
in the glories of the new heaven. and the new earth. Well, I've
said these are but a few. There are many other passages
that bring into focus other categories, but surely these should suffice
to convince you, if your mind is at all receptive to biblical
truth, that the doctrines of heaven and hell are to be powerfully
motivating doctrines, both in seeking to get sinners into the
way and in keeping converted sinners upon the way. Let me
ask you then, as we close our study tonight, are you in the
way, the way that leads to life? Older man, older woman, young
man, young woman, teenager, boy or girl, are you in the way that
leads to life? If you're not in the way, how
can I say it more simply than to set before you the truth that
heaven and hell are before you. And I would seek to plead with
you, to entreat you, to warn you, to do everything within
my power to use that holy whip of the doctrine of hell and say
to you, young or old alike, flee from the wrath to come. Hell
is real and your place in it will be real unless you get into
the way And if I could somehow speak of the glories of the world
to come, what it will be to be in the society of those whose
hearts are nothing but love, whose lives are nothing but righteousness,
reflecting perfectly the gentleness, the glory of Christ, as they
are perfected into that likeness, I would say, by all that's beautiful
and lovely and peaceful and harmonious and glorious in the world to
come. Flee from your sins. Run from
the sins that will damn you and destroy you and land you in the
company of hateful demons and the devil himself and men and
women of the vilest sort. I plead with you by the horrors
of hell and the glories of heaven to flee from your sins and run
to Christ. Run to Christ who loves to welcome
sinners. who has, as recorded in scripture,
received the vilest of sinners, who has promised in his word
him that comes to me, I will in no wise cast out. And for
you who are upon the way, I know from my pastoral interaction
with some of you things are rough. You're in a state right now where
perhaps things have never been more bleak in terms of your present
prospects. Could it be? that one of the
reasons God has brought all of these dark providences upon you
is He wants to get your eyes more firmly riveted on another
place. Things were going so well that
you really began to get pretty earthbound. Things and relationships
down here began to subtly turn your heart away from single hearted
devotion to Christ. So God's put a worm in the gourd
of some of your most precious earthly relationships. God's
put a worm in the gourd of your material success. God's put a
worm in the gourd of your physical health. God's put a worm in every
gourd that was your resting place. And like Jonah, you're complaining
about your withered gourds on every hand. Could it be that
what God is saying is, look up, set your mind on things above,
not on the things upon the earth? For you died and your life is
hid with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life,
shall appear, then shall you be manifested with Him in glory.
And child of God, the scripture says, in a way that I cannot
explain or fully comprehend, that there's going to be a direct
proportion to the glory shared with Christ then and the sufferings
shared with Christ now. Could it be I wouldn't dare take
the role of a prophet and say thus saith the Lord it is, but
could it be That this is the word that some distressed saint
needs this very night. What's the purpose of God in
all of this? You're saying with old Jacob,
all these things are against me. No, my friend, they're for
you to get your eyes and your affections and the concentration
of your soul upon that place to which your blessed Lord is
committed to bring you. And who knows? But once everything
is riveted afresh where it ought to be, God may do for you as
he did for Job when all of that affliction had accomplished its
purpose. The Lord turned again the captivity of Job. I'm not
saying he will, but he may. But in either case, your safety
is in your heavenly mindedness. The apostles said these light
afflictions are but for a moment. and they work a far more exceeding
and eternal weight of glory while we look not on the things that
are seen, but on the things that are not seen. Oh, may God help
us to look away from the present circumstances that have so distressed
us, not in a kind of irresponsible escapism, but in the kind of
perspective that is biblical. where we draw our consolation
according to the words of Jesus, great is your reward in heaven. If we believed, as some people
do, that God's going to give Christians the upper hand yet
and the world will basically be a saved world and Christians
will be in the ascendancy, what would the Lord have said? He
wouldn't have said, great is your reward in heaven. He'd say,
hang around long enough and you Christians will take the upper
hand and then you'll be able to give it to those sinners.
That isn't the consolation that's ever given to us in the gospel.
If you wait around long enough, this world will become a friend
of grace and of righteousness and truth in the people of God.
No, Jesus said, in the world you shall have tribulation. And
as long as this world exists in this present order of things,
the people of God are going to be the abused, the despised minority,
more or less. And it's one of the ways God
disciplines them to keep their affections where they belong.
Oh, may God make us a heavenly-minded people and the people who carry
about always the awful, awful conviction that those apart from
the Savior are lost and will be sent to that awful place Some
of you wonder why there's very little humor in this Pope, but
that's one reason why. Heaven and hell hang in the balance,
and you don't tickle people into serious thoughts about hell.
No one ever wept about hell on the heels of a joke. Perhaps the best thing that could
happen to some of you is to go through one day without laughter,
to take seriously where you're going, unless you repent and
believe the gospel. Now I'm not calling for a mournful,
doleful, joyless Christianity. Those of you who know me personally
know that I think for the most part I'm a pretty happy man.
I can't say I'm the happiest old man in the place. As someone
could say this past Wednesday, Pastor Clark, in a most gracious
way, made that boast and I believe it was an accurate boast. But,
oh dear people, when we in this place are seeking to open up
the perspectives of this book, heaven and hell are always, as
it were, looking over our shoulder. May God grant that those realities
will be with us in ever-increasing degrees until we're brought home
safely at last, and behold our blessed Savior. Let us pray. Our Father, we do ask that Your
Holy Spirit will take the Word of God read, the Word of God
expounded and applied to our consciences, and make it to be
a savor of life unto life. Holy Father, make us a heavenly-minded
people. We pray for those that are yet
wedded to their sins and strangers to grace. that you Lord will
convince them that everything your word says about the horrors
of hell is but a poor and faint expression of the awful reality. May they flee from the wrath
to come. May they flee to your beloved
son who died for sinners and lives to receive and welcome
all who will come to him. O Lord, may the last day reveal
that your word was not preached in vain. Make it effectual to
the accomplishment of your own sovereign purposes. Be with us
as a people for those who are presently in the crucible of
intense trial, O God. May they find instruction from
the word this night that will enable them by your grace to
fix their eyes upon their eternal inheritance and not to grow weary
in well-doing, knowing in due season they with us shall reap
if we faint not. Hear our cry and answer our prayer
for the sake of your beloved Son. Amen.